At a friends house goofing around. He remembers opening the sliding glass door and thought it was still open when he went barreling through it. As he fell, a shard of glass sliced through his shin, an inch or two deep (I saw it in the emergency room before they stitched him up). Got 12 stitches and they sent him home. He can't walk but is already bragging to his friends calling up about the scar he's going to have.

The first day he visited our house during the adoption process at the age of 2 1/2, he jumped off the couch and busted his head open on the coffee table. He went to the hospital in the ambulance that day and we were afraid that the orphanage wouldn't let us have him. At about 3 1/2, he jumped into the 10 foot deep end of the pool without floaters and without knowing how to swim twice on the same vacation. Went straight to the bottom and his older brother and I had to fish him out.

QuoteGrace62
So glad your son is OK! Risk takers often achieve great things...

He's not so much a risk taker as a do first think later kind of kid. My father's favorite quote when I was a kid was "Why don't you think a little bit?!" when I did something stupid. My brother and I vowed that we would never say that to our kids. I've never said it, at least not in full, but it's been on my lips many times. Thanks all for the kind words. He's going to be fine.

Sounds like me when I was a kid. I was a regular visitor to the emergency room and my junior high yearbooks are full of comments like "hope you make it through the summer". My epic accident was a 1 3/4 somersault on a trampoline with no guards...came down face first on the frame...spurting blood everywhere and 13 stitches in my forehead and nose. My parents thought I was gonna die. I still have the scars. I grew out of the frequent accident mode by about age 18 so there's still hope.

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

Wild ponies make life amusing... your son is lucky in so many ways... he survives his own extremes and he has you.... cha cha cha cha changes *(:>* Huge smile and some energy to deal with the future *(:>*

Wow, I didn't realize there were still patio doors out there that weren't made of safety glass! At least now the people will have to replace it, so when your son goes through it again he won't get cut as badly. Just kidding! I'm certainly glad he's OK.

I went through a drugstore door with my legs. In slow motion I remember the top pane of glass coming down, like a guillotine, and me pushing out of its way just in time. This was around 1976. The next day it was replaced with something new I had never seen (much of) before. Plexiglass.

similar to Mini9, I went backward through a single pane window in my mid-20s and the whole time I was thinking that I was going to sever a mainline or get mangled. and, all that was going through my head was how I had just completed a solo trip through a foreign continent for two months with numerous crazy encounters and I was going down in such a stupid way. to this day I am amazed that I walked away without so much as a scratch. I lost at least one of my nine lives that day.

Good to hear he will be okay. Got two boys of my own, 12 and 7. If running through a glass window is the only issue you have had, thank your lucky stars. My boys have their own share of stitches, kids can do some crazy stuff.

A few years back my cousin (6 at the time) ran into the street and ran into a moving car. Scared the @#$%& out of my aunt, she was in the front yard with him when it happened.

Sorry to barge in with textbook knowledgem but statistically a head injury increases the chances of future head injuries.
I suspect that there was damage before the coffee table incident-- this is a case for a neurologist and developmental therapists, not just a "personality thing." He's impulsive and apparently has some deficits in depth perception and/or figure/ground. Prefrontal and parieto-occipital. Coup/countercoup.

I was at summer camp during my teen years and we were horsing around, as guys are prone to do, There was a non-safety glass door with a frame about the strength of a screen door between the sleeping quarters and the bathroom. I was chasing a guy after he did something to me and he, thinking that it would slow me down, slammed the glass door shut right in front of me. I remember putting my arm up to shield my face from the door and then the door shattering as my arm went through it.

I must have gone into shock immediately, because I remember looking at my forearm and remarking how cool it was to see the bone, and wow, the bone is white. Then I thought that I really should get to the infirmary, this probably wasn't so good, so I sauntered, not ran, over to the infirmary and caused the nurse to almost pass out, she became totally white! I wasn't feeling any pain. Needless to say I got put in a car and whisked to emergency, where I got many, many stitches. I was lucky, if the arm would have been turned differently ever so slightly, I would have severed a major nerve and lost the feeling and use of that arm.

I used to take my nephew ice skating at the local arena. One time, when he was around 7, he skated up to hug me from behind. His legs continued forward between mine, tilting me off balance and we both went down. He landed flat on his back, and I pancaked the same, right on top of him. Amazing that we both walked away unscathed.

Thanks all again for the nice comments. We live overseas, where safety glass isn't used, at least not in residences to my knowledge. He's a great kid and I'm glad that it wasn't worse. Probably won't the last time he does something whacky.

QuoteDrew
Thanks all again for the nice comments. We live overseas, where safety glass isn't used, at least not in residences to my knowledge. He's a great kid and I'm glad that it wasn't worse. Probably won't the last time he does something whacky.

Fearless can be a good thing. As noted, he has survived this far and will continue to survive.

But teach him First Aid ! (yes, on himself). I can't even begin to count the number of times I dragged myself home bleeding from one place or another when I was a kid. Bike crashes, falling out of trees, falling off cliffs, getting hit by a car, whatever. And I'm 50 now, but I don't do that stuff any more.. I break more easily now (except for the parts that are stainless steel).

And I remember a babysitter putting her hand through our front glass door during a game of 'Tag" when I was a tyke, and slicing into the main blood vessel in her wrist. We got it wrapped and got her to the hospital- I think a neighbor drove her. Blood sure sprays a long way !